Category Archives: Home Run Derby

Another All-Star break commences with the Big Home Run Derby down at Target Field this evening. Chris Berman will be part of your evening if you want to watch the festivities, Lord only knows what kind of stupid catchphrases he’ll have for all of us as the evening progresses.

The derby really is a celebration of the season, tonight is for us fans. There’s really no money involved for the players. They’re doing it to entertain us. That’s the part of it that should be enjoyed.

I’ve got a lot of great derby memories as a kid – and this is definitely one of those baseball things that takes you back to being a kid. An evening of pure enjoyment awaits us, even if Berman is going to try to rain on the party by telling us that ‘Jose Bautista just hit one all the way to St. Paul!’.

Finally Giancarlo Stanton meets Derby. The competition will never be the same (he’s a 3/1 favorite to win the thing per Bovada with Yasiel Puig checking in at 5/1).

The All Star festivities can be kind of sad because the season is half over – I started thinking about NFL and my fantasy football team for the first time last night – but we don’t have to get into all that until tomorrow. I’ll enjoy today and tonight, though I do miss Baseball Tonight at the All Star Gala; here is the only proof on the internet that the neat two hour special after the Home Run Derby existed. It served as a great fireside chat for Karl Ravech, old school Peter Gammons and the other talking heads and really set the scene for all-things second half in the game. It’s another reason ESPN sucks nowadays.

It didn’t matter that he wasn’t an All-Star, Yoenis Cespedes stole the show tonight in the Chevrolet Home Run Derby.

Cespedes hit 17 home runs in the first round of the contest, which was the best of any round total for a player. He basically took two hours off after that and prepared for the final. The showdown was The Cuban vs. The Kid, with Bryce Harper and his father Ron as his pitching coach opposing Cespedes in the finals.

Harper led off the final round with a strong eight home runs, but you could tell in watching him it was a struggle to hit those eight. By the time it got to Cespedes as the final hitter of the night, he had plenty left in the tank. He homered nine times while only using five outs to take home the title.

Altogether it was a great derby. It was entertaining, and I didn’t find myself fighting the urge to change the channel like in those past years; for whatever reason.

The Home Run Derby. The one remaining time in the baseball season where Baseball and Berman converge.

For one night and one night only, baseball fans are treated to a few hours filled of Chris Berman and his over-used puns and soliloquies. He’ll say stupid shit that couldn’t possibly ever become recycled material. There will be awkward moments. That’s because Chris Berman is past his prime.

But there’s something very traditional about it all, you see. Because since we were all kids Berman has been the emcee for the spectacle that is the Home Run Derby. There is only one guarantee: you’re going to see some moonshots that aren’t human flying out of the yard later tonight. No matter who is providing the commentary, it’s still cool.

Tonight the headliners in our mind are Bryce Harper and Chris Davis. That’s when you don’t want to go to the bathroom. But we want to go on record right now as saying look out for the darkhorse in this competition, Pedro Alvarez. We have a feeling about him. He’ll be hitting with his ears tucked into his hat. It might just be the year of the bull, “El Toro”.

We love the Home Run Derby here at Diamond Hoggers so much that it’s like a damn holiday.

Harper was selected by David Wright to a team that includes Wright, Carlos Gonzalez and Michael Cuddyer. Michael Cuddyer? Well why the Hell is he part of the Home Run Derby? He’s boring as a chicken dinner.

The reason I’m going to watch a week from tonight is to see what Harper and Chris Davis do. It’s nice to have Prince Fielder and Cano in the contest as well. But if Chris “Roid” Davis and Harper check out early, I’ll probably zone out and only check back in mentally to hear what kinds of dumb shit Berman says.

I’ve always wanted to see a guy like Adam Dunn in the Home Run Derby, and I’m probably never going to get to see it. I hope Harper decides to take part in it; because it’s about the fans and it doesn’t necessarily mean he has to get into the contest and wreck his body and his swing.

By merely entering in it, he could treat it as his daily batting practice session and excite a few fans with it. He doesn’t have to put on a show like Josh Hamilton did at Yankee Stadium, though that would be cool to see.

My wife turned on the Bachelorette for round two. I watched the final round of Joey Bats vs. Prince on my iPhone. Brutal, but it was even getting boring for me. The main course is this evening, I thought to myself.

And that’s it about the 2012 Home Run Derby. The next one will be my 30th. Gross.

Get ready for all the ‘back-back-back-back’ your brains can handle, and other thrilling calls such as “He hit that one all the way to Wichita! WOW!”

It’s Chris Berman and the 2012 Home Run Derby. I won’t allow one of my favorite nights of the MLB season to be spoiled by Bristol’s most famous sweat-head. I think I’m going to go with Jose Bautista to win this one tonight. Here’s the odds on tonight’s derby:

As a kid, I remember one of the big deals on RBI Baseball 4 for the old Sega Genesis was ‘sinking a pearl in the fountain’ of Kansas City. How many dozen times is that going to happen tonight?

We’ll be back with a full recap of the evening’s highlights. Definitely root for Berman to catch something stupid, because we’ll be all over it. Also be on the lookout for good screen shots of the evening’s festivities. It’s too bad Harper, Dunn or Bruce couldn’t have sneaked their way into this competition.

My buddy Trent texted me last night to tell me that Kershaw suggested on ESPN radio that they do a pitchers hr derby. So naturally, that led into a debate about who would be the 8 pitchers to participate and how would it turn out. After a night of Coors, Chris Berman, and Homers, the debate had turned into an absolute mess. My boy RV and I got together this morning to iron everything out. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:

Here’s a shot of the fluorescent cleats that Prince Fielder, Matt Holliday, Rick Weeks, and Matt Kemp wore for the derby last night. I’m not real sure why they decided to do this, but it did not translate into any type of extra power. An immensely disappointing night for the NL squad; and Weeks and Kemp were especially nondescript.

In short, Prince you pansy ass. We let you select the squad and in true Brewer fashion you fuck it all up. Joey Votto, Justin Upton or Jay Bruce would have done just fine in this contest. But you selected Rick Weeks who swung so damn hard that he hit more foul poppers (and led off with a whiff swing) than anything.

Pure legend next to never will be, Bobby Valentine. Barry, you deserve so much better than to be sitting there with the likes of Bobby V. and we pity that you were there for what probably added up to about 5 hours of Bobby putting his foot in his mouth.

This is Adrian Gonzalez’s spray chart in the final round. He hit 11 in all and most figured that was going to be good enough to win it. But then Robinson Cano came up and started hitting off his daddy and made 12 look easy. Cano easily stole the show last night and about 5 of the bombs he hit were the most impressive. Although I give Big Papi major credit for having the idea to put Adrian in this contest because he has a nice easy stroke that translates well for a Derby.

We watched the Home Run Derby last night pretty attentively. We watched, and we waited for Chris Berman to strike down on us with his “back, back, back’s” without mercy.

Guess what? Something is rotten in Denmark. Chris Berman has been reading the blogs. It’s obvious at least to me that he toned it down this year. One commenter in our liveblog mentioned that Berman was old school, and saving his trademark patented finishing verbal maneuver for only the true bombs. That might hold water, but it was too toned down.

By our count, and we admit to doing a fair amount of flipping as the night went on; Berman only did about 7 or 8 back, back, back’s. Rather than on every other home run like in the past. He really, truly seemed to be trying to hold back and when he did do it, it was simply by habit or accident.

He did however unleash some of the following gems:

“This one’s a sky-scraper” (actually said this on two different occasions)

“This one is out to the space station, isn’t it?”

“That was a fair catch” (after Prince Fielder hit a high drive that just got over in RF)

“In that swing off, Prince was king”

“Splish splash and we’re taking a bath” (easily the Berman-ism of the night, after a HR landed in the pool)

If you were turning in for Berman last night; and we know that no one out there actually was, you weren’t completely let down. But something from the past was missing. Berman has been reading what’s out there about his performance in past home run derby’s and due to that he toned it down with his trademark line. His hair was about as thin and bad as ever, though.